Connection – Common Causes for Greatly Decreased Internet Speeds

connectiondownload-speed

Two days ago I set my computer up to dual-boot with Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.04.
On windows 7, my download speed averages around 500kb/s, regardless of time of day.
On Ubuntu, downloading simple updates from the Software Centre, my average speed is about 15-20kb/s rather than 500-540kb/s which I get on Windows 7.
I am on a wireless network.
Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Also, my father is on Ubuntu 11.04 as well, and his connection speed is no slower than it was before. could that be because he's wired in to the modem itself rather than running wireless? I'm unsure of what to do to bring Ubuntu's speed on my laptop back up from the stone age to where it should be.

Best Answer

It might be irrelevant, but are the Windows download speeds after using a download accelerator? I think windows did not report its download speeds for updates.

In case you are wondering why the software center downloads are slow, it might be because it uses wget (which does not use an accelerator) and is like downloading files using plain firefox.

Try installing axel, apt-fast and see if that might help :

sudo apt-get install axel
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tldm217/tahutek.net
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apt-fast

And then use apt-fast instead of apt-get for eg. sudo apt-fast upgrade or apt-fast update.

I cannot speak about any other reasons for slow speeds on Ubuntu, and am pretty sure that I've gotten better download speeds in Ubuntu than ever in Windows. Try taking a look at your network usage in gnome-system-monitor and see your network usage. Also since you are on a wireless network, try updating your network drivers.

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